The Jim Carroll Band - A World Without Gravity: The Best Of (1993)

Carroll was a New York poet living in California when punk exploded in the late 1970s. He rightly sensed that punk was as much a lyrical stance as a musical one. Inspired by contemporaries like Patti Smith and Richard Hell, Carroll found himself a band and started spewing his literate and often fatalistic verse over a solid 4/4 beat. His surprise 1980 hit "People Who Died" sounded both shocking and exciting as it roared out of bored radios all across America. The rest of this guitar-heavy set including the classic "Wicked Gravity" and the previously unreleased "Differing Touch" paints similarly edgy portraits of lurkers and fringe dwellers. The rote rock backing occasionally gets a little tepid, but Carroll's bitter-junkie tongue burns throughout.

Tracklist:

1 People Who Died 5:01
2 Work Not Play 4:28
3 Differing Touch 2:30
4 It's Too Late 3:05
5 Wicked Gravity 4:58
6 I Want The Angel 2:51
7 Them 2:41
8 City Drops Into The Night (Live Version) 7:02
9 Dry Dreams 3:08
10 Jealous Twin 4:02
11 Plain Division 4:31
12 Voices 2:57
13 Lorraine 6:06
14 (No More) Luxuries 4:03
15 I Write Your Name 3:33
16 Love Crimes 3:23
17 Catholic Boy 3:06
18 Day And Night 2:22